


Her

by Lina_Muro



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Set in the missing year, Shattered Rumple, Zelena holding Rumple captive, dagger control stuff, season three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4035895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lina_Muro/pseuds/Lina_Muro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After capturing Rumplestiltskin in the clearing, Zelena isn't content to let the sorcerer sit. She has questions for the enigmatic man she couldn't stay away from. Particularly about a certain blue-eyed beauty who tried to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her

****

“Tell me about her.”

The voice is oily, but commanding.  He wants to ignore it.  He wants to run away.  But he’s compelled. He's caged. He’s torn. 

There are voices, so many voices. Rumple? Papa? Was he Bae? No, Neal. No, Emma? Not Tamara. Betrayed, no, no, by Milah.  He fought so hard. Where is the savior? Is there no Henry?  No Son?

Everything is coupled with confusion, and it makes everything else fuzzy. Flashes of images and thoughts and memories and dreams all twisting and weaving and broken. Nothing makes sense, and nothing is in focus. Yet somehow the world is sharp and painful and too bright. 

He feels his fingers twitching, a spasm in his face that doesn't seem to go away. Neal's head itches. Rumple doesn't want to scratch anything. He wants to keep pulling on the strings. Fingers tangle in the knotted straw, no, strings, no, gold. 

"The strings will make it better," he twitters. "The strings, the strings, the strings." 

“ _Rumpelstiltskin.”_  

This time there is pain.  Pain in the voice and in the head. More pain. It doesn’t make the voices stop. It makes them _scream._  He raises his eyes from the floor, looking toward the green woman, and without thinking about it, an impish giggle escapes his lips.

“Be more specific, dearie,” he cackles, black fingers curling around bars. He ticks a bit, twitching erratically, longing for the strings again. “There are so many  _hers,_ as you know _.”_

He gleans satisfaction from her fingers clenching around his dagger, and the anger that flashes across her tainted, emerald face, giggling again. He bursts into song as she glares at him. _“Wicked witchy, witchy wick. Great green face, she’s such a_ -“

“Enough,” she hisses, and the pain is back. She grabs his lanky hair and pulls. “The girl in the clearing, darling. Belle." He hates hearing her name on those lips. Wrapping around and tainting that light with her poison. "Tell me about her.”

He doesn’t want to. Neither of them do. He wants her to be safe. Neal wants her to be safe too. He grimaces, grinds his pointed, rotted teeth as his body shudders.  The witch trails the dagger down his face, and the metal burns. 

“...love...her...” he mutters against his will.

“Speak up,” she orders, and her nauseating smile is back, all teeth, too wide and too bright against her cursed skin. She stands back, gesturing at him with the blade.

“She is….”  For a brief moment, there is clarity, _her_ face shining through the clutter and fog. He sees her bright blue eyes, and her smile, looking at him in a way no one else ever had. Amazed. Adoring. Loving. The imp slides away, the madness flees, even Neal is quiet in his mind, and for a moment he’s just Rumpelstiltskin. He feels the warmth in his chest, curling around the shrunken lump that is his heart. She gives him so much courage. 

Reptilian eyes narrow, and he meets the witch’s gaze.  She seems taken aback by the  intensity and focus there after hours of mindless twaddle.

“You want to know who she is, Zelena? She’s the only light I've found in three hundred years of darkness. She’s the bravest woman I've ever met. She is selfless, and beautiful, and brilliant.  And you’ll never be able to touch her.”

Zelena eyes narrow, a jealous sneer starting.  “So, it’s  _True Love_  then, is it?” she taps the dagger against her other hand. She forces a smirk onto her face. “It would terribly tragic if I ordered you to kill her on sight.”  She laughs, but its hollow, turning as if to go, but he isn’t finished.

“Ah, ah ah," He tuts. "It won’t work."  The focus is waning again, the pain leaking back into his head. "Won't work, won't work. And do you want to know why~y, Zelena?”   

She pauses, glancing over her shoulder.  Always thirsty for knowledge, for attention, always wanting things she didn’t have. “Enlighten me.”

A mad grin spreads over the Dark One’s face.

“It’s because even at their wo~rst," he breaks into song again. " _Black and brown and broken and burned,"_ Rumplestilskin cackled delightedly.  "Her meat pies were always better than yours.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Another older piece written during Season Three.


End file.
